Friday, September 29, 2006

Hot Hand #8 (Updated With Results)

***See bottom of post for an update including the final results of the hand. Keep reading if you have not yet read the original post from Thursday***

This is a fun hand that happened to me recently during the first hour of the full tilt 20k guaranteed tournament, and it has a little bit of everything -- some preflop decisions, some drawing and pot odds considerations, and even some slow playing or other strong-hand possibilities involved. As I reviewed my mtt hands this week, this one jumped right out as a good candidate for Hot Hand #8, so I wanted to get this up here today for you all to consider and, hopefully, to comment on.

The Setup: First half hour of the large 20k guaranteed no-limit holdem tournament on full tilt. Blinds are 20/40. I am in the BB holding QTo. Early position limps in for 40 chips, it folds around to the button who also limps. The the SB limps for another 20 chips.

Question 1: What's your move here? To me this is fairly easy -- I check and see a free flop. I don't have a great hand, and in fact it's a hand that is fairly easily dominated on either of my hole cards, so I don't want to raise it here, especially with the early limper into the pot preflop. I could see very rarely (say, 10% of the time or less) putting in a standard 3x or 4x preflop raise here, purely for deception purposes and to help me win some nice chips when I do happen to pick up a monster preflop behind multiple limpers into the pot, but for the most part this is not in my view a good spot to do anything fancy. Just take the free flop and see if I nail it.

The flop comes KJ8 rainbow, giving me a naked oesd. There are 160 chips in the pot.

Question 2: Do you bet here, or check and hope to see a free card? In this case, I opted to check. Typically I don't like to bet at flops when I have nothing and when the flop contains two cards above a 9. Those just tend to hit too many hands that stick around to see flops -- one pair, two pair, straight draw, trips, etc. So, when my hand is weak and the board contains two high cards, I like to keep things as cheap as possible, especially where I'd like to stick around and see another card. I check.

The next player then leads out at the 160-chip pot for 40 chips. The button calls, and then SB folds:

Question 2a: What about now? Do I fold where I have only a draw and at least one of these two players has almost surely made something already? Do I call and try to draw cheap? Or is a raise a good strategic play here?

To me, this was another fairly easy decision. I have to call 40 into a pot of 240 right now, so I'm being given 6 to 1 odds to make my draw. My oesd is a 31% chance of filling by the river and around a 17% chance to fill on just the turn card. So, at 6-to-1, the pot is laying me more than enough odds to call even just to see if I can make my straight on the turn card alone. Folding is out of the question. And I don't like the raise, as my earlier comment still applies, and I am likely to be behind to someone with at least one pair on this board with two high cards, so I don't want to get too involved when I know I'm behind. I have a 2-to-1 oesd with 2 cards to come, and I can see the first card for 6 to 1. Gotta take it. I call.

And the turn card cometh:

Bingo! I've made my straight. And it's even the nut straight, as anyone holding T7 has also just made a lower straight than mine. No pair and no three of a suit on the board, so my nut straight is the stone nuts at this point in the hand.

Question 3: How do I extract the most value here? Do I check and let someone else do the betting for me? Will someone bet this hand now if I check it? Do I bet small and try to draw someone into raising me? Or, do I go for the overbet and assume someone who has hit this board hard will call or raise me further? How do you play it?

Given that the 9 on the turn was in the middle of the other straight cards out there from the flop, I didn't see it as very likely that any other straights were made by this card. Rather, I figured, an oesd is a more likely holding after the turn for my opponents, or even more likely, one pair or maybe two pairs. I can't even put much credence in the flush draw since there was only one club on the flop and I'm not sure why anyone would make or call even a minbet with just a backdoor flush draw on a high flop. So, I just didn't see there as being much realistic upside on this board given the 9 on the turn, and thus I chose not to go with a big bet that I might otherwise have put in here given the high board at this point in the hand. I also, however, did not want to check since I had something good, and since all the minbetting went down on the last round of betting, I was afraid this could be checked around since as I mentioned above I thought it unlikely that the 9 filled any straights other than my own. So, I went with one of my least favorite moves typically:

The dreaded minbet. I figured, let's just get another 100 or 200 chips into the pot on this round, and if I'm lucky someone will think I am weak and put in a decent raise, which I can then reraise and take down a nice-sized pot. And that's exactly what happened:

theboatman simply could not resist my showing of weakness. Again I am reminded of my mantra when bluffing -- I always strive to tell a consistent story from the beginning of the hand if I want to maximize my ability to slow-play a strong hand (or bluff big with a weak hand). If I had come out with a 4x raise preflop in this hand, then my weak lead on the turn here could be interpreted by an astute player as me trying to sucker some more bets in with a weak bet when I am holding a strong hand (overpair, trips, etc.). But here, I just limped preflop, and I checked and then just called a minbet on the flop. Then on the turn, I led out with just a minbet of my own, which I was hoping would continue to give the impression that I was still weak, probably even on a draw as a result of the 9♣, which made not only a number of straight draws possible but also the new flush draw on the turn. Having acted weak all throughout the hand, my weak lead on the turn was immediately interpreted by theboatman as another weak play with what was likely a weak or drawing hand on my part, so he went ahead with the big raise with what was likely some kind of made hand on his part.

Anyways, I'm sure you can guess how the rest of this hand went. I immediately reverse-hoyed the guy, still holding the stone nuts and with just one card to come:

and he called my hoy bet (actually he reraised the 1 more chip to get allin, which I of course called).

Any takers as to what this guy is holding here? Is he on a draw or a made hand? I'll post the answer shortly.

*****UPDATED FRIDAY WITH RESULTS*****

Thanks again to the many commenters and for the different opinions of how I played this hand, and the guesses of what theboatman is holding here, which I will post below after a bit of discussion.

Interestingly, most of the commenters have this guy on some sort of slow-play. I don't know if some of that maybe has to do with the fact that I've chosen this hand as a Hot Hand post, or if his play really does smack of slowplay. From my online mtt experience, when I see a minbet on the flop in a regular donk-filled tournament like the nightly 20k, the vast majority of the time it does not represent a slow-play so much as a weak lead, a guy with a draw or with some other so-so hand like 2nd pair decent kicker, etc. who just wants to see who he can chase out here before another card falls and potentially makes his hand a little weaker. Quite often it's the drawing hands who try to put these bets in because they want to try to ensure that they give themselves good pot odds to make their draws. Why else bet 40 into a 160-chip pot? Most slow-players, and again this is just based on my online mtt experience, are much more likely to check when they slow-play. The minbet is not often used as a pure slow-play tactic in my experience because it just reeks of weakness, and most players are concerned that their slowplay will be obvious when they put in a minbet. Personally, in this kind of a tournament I would more expect either a check, or a slightly larger bet than a minbet from a slow-player here. To me, this seems like a drawing hand or a hand that has hit a little something on this flop, but not something great with which I would expect a larger bet on the flop here.

Jordan and a few other posters also commented specifically on my own minbet after the turn card. The commenters in general seem to think that this was a weaker move than I should have made here. I don't necessarily disagree. Let me explain it this way: if theboatman had not minbet on the flop to begin with, I would have almost certainly not minbet back at him on the turn. I would have been much more likely to have put in a larger bet, still fairly small overall, more or less right in line with the criticism of the play from the comments. In this case, with theboatman having led out with a minbet on the flop, and then with another card falling that could make more straight draws on the turn, I thought another minbet would seem like I clearly have not hit anything big, but rather maybe myself just made on oesd or a flush draw with the clubs with one card to come. Maybe it has something to do with just "being part of the flow of the game" as The Zen of Poker is always talking about, but the minbet there just seemed to go right along with theboatman's minbet on the flop, and seemed to me in a split-second decision to convey just the right impression that I was still weak but now was hoping to make a draw heading into the river. This impression was key because what I wanted was for someone else to raise me here on this street. If I had made a larger bet, certainly theboatman would have called but who knows if he would have raised or not, since my bet would suggest that I might have a decent made hand at this point. But with the 9 falling on a board with KJ8 already on it, I really thought this was the perfect card to just continue the minbet theme with, which was my attempt to clearly suggest I was drawing heading into the river. That is what gives a player like theboatman the impetus to raise me here on the turn, because as you all (hopefully) know a basic tenet of aggressive, strategic poker play is to make your opponents pay to draw on your made hands.

So that was the thinking behind my minbet on the turn. Although as I mentioned above, I have no disagreement with the commenters who think I should have bet a little bigger here. Without the minbet trend having already been started on the flop, I would have been likely to make exactly that kind of bet. Just remember, though, with my bet on the turn, after making the nuts, I did not just want to get more chips into the pot. That was surely one of my goals, but even more specifically I really wanted to get raised on the turn so I could get it allin right then. If I wait until the river and then try to push in my last 1000 chips, anyone who was drawing would have likely missed their draws, and with no further cards to come, they're going to fold to my bet. By getting them committed in little increments on the turn and convincing them that I am myself drawing, I know that I will often be able to get more money into the pot from people who are themselves drawing, or have middling hands that they're hoping can make trips, a boat, etc. on the river, because there is still that one more card left to come.

I think Jordan also questioned my allin reverse hoy reraise on the turn, suggesting instead that I could have min-reraised to stick with the weak story I had been consistently selling from the beginning. With a bit of a deeper stack, I would have doubtless done just that. At the time, however, my stack had so little left in it that I didn't care at that point if he knew I was obviously strong then or not. At that point once all those chips are already into the pot -- due to his own raise in fact, not mine -- I'm assuming he has something which he'll be willing to call another 460 chips with. If not and he had folded to me there, I would happily take the free 2000 chips when he would have gotten more than 5 to 1 odds to stay in for the river with me. Nothing would make me happier than to have all of my 5 to 1 pot odds draws get folded by all my opponents when I reraise them on the turn. That would be way, way +EV for me overall. But again, with deeper stacks involved, I definitely would have reraised there, but reraised small, sticking with the weakish impression I had been setting up throughout the hand.

OK so without further adieu, here is the final screenshot showing what theboatman is holding in his hand that he got allin with me with on the turn:

Just J9s. Kudos to Donnie and Joanne who basically nailed this one. The guy hit two pairs on the turn, which explains his big raise of my minbet on the turn, which worked to a tee. Also notice what theboatman was holding when he made that curious minbet on the flop -- just 2nd pair (Jacks) with a 9 kicker. Certainly not the way I would have played the hand with that holding, but it does fit the profile of what I find is usually behind a bet like this in my experience in online mtt's. Thanks to my betting of the hand from the beginning through to my reverse hoy-raise after the turn card, this guy never even considered that I had my straight or that his two pairs on the turn could be behind. And that is exactly the way I want my slow-play like this to be.

Thanks again for all the comments from everyone. And I know I promised Nijle that my next Hot Hand post would be about stud or hilo. My apologies. That hand post is still coming, I promise.

Have a wonderful weekend and best of luck at the virtual tables! I am hoping to play more of the ftp 20k this weekend after taking a few days off from the big tournaments this week as the Hammer family continues to adjust to both of the Hammer girls sleeping in the same bedroom. But they're coming along, slowly but surely. Especially the slowly part.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Hot Hand #8

This is a fun hand that happened to me recently during the first hour of the full tilt 20k guaranteed tournament, and it has a little bit of everything -- some preflop decisions, some drawing and pot odds considerations, and even some slow playing or other strong-hand possibilities involved. As I reviewed my mtt hands this week, this one jumped right out as a good candidate for Hot Hand #8, so I wanted to get this up here today for you all to consider and, hopefully, to comment on.

The Setup: First half hour of the large 20k guaranteed no-limit holdem tournament on full tilt. Blinds are 20/40. I am in the BB holding QTo. Early position limps in for 40 chips, it folds around to the button who also limps. The the SB limps for another 20 chips.

Question 1: What's your move here? To me this is fairly easy -- I check and see a free flop. I don't have a great hand, and in fact it's a hand that is fairly easily dominated on either of my hole cards, so I don't want to raise it here, especially with the early limper into the pot preflop. I could see very rarely (say, 10% of the time or less) putting in a standard 3x or 4x preflop raise here, purely for deception purposes and to help me win some nice chips when I do happen to pick up a monster preflop behind multiple limpers into the pot, but for the most part this is not in my view a good spot to do anything fancy. Just take the free flop and see if I nail it.

The flop comes KJ8 rainbow, giving me a naked oesd. There are 160 chips in the pot.

Question 2: Do you bet here, or check and hope to see a free card? In this case, I opted to check. Typically I don't like to bet at flops when I have nothing and when the flop contains two cards above a 9. Those just tend to hit too many hands that stick around to see flops -- one pair, two pair, straight draw, trips, etc. So, when my hand is weak and the board contains two high cards, I like to keep things as cheap as possible, especially where I'd like to stick around and see another card. I check.

The next player then leads out at the 160-chip pot for 40 chips. The button calls, and then SB folds:

Question 2a: What about now? Do I fold where I have only a draw and at least one of these two players has almost surely made something already? Do I call and try to draw cheap? Or is a raise a good strategic play here?

To me, this was another fairly easy decision. I have to call 40 into a pot of 240 right now, so I'm being given 6 to 1 odds to make my draw. My oesd is a 31% chance of filling by the river and around a 17% chance to fill on just the turn card. So, at 6-to-1, the pot is laying me more than enough odds to call even just to see if I can make my straight on the turn card alone. Folding is out of the question. And I don't like the raise, as my earlier comment still applies, and I am likely to be behind to someone with at least one pair on this board with two high cards, so I don't want to get too involved when I know I'm behind. I have a 2-to-1 oesd with 2 cards to come, and I can see the first card for 6 to 1. Gotta take it. I call.

And the turn card cometh:

Bingo! I've made my straight. And it's even the nut straight, as anyone holding T7 has also just made a lower straight than mine. No pair and no three of a suit on the board, so my nut straight is the stone nuts at this point in the hand.

Question 3: How do I extract the most value here? Do I check and let someone else do the betting for me? Will someone bet this hand now if I check it? Do I bet small and try to draw someone into raising me? Or, do I go for the overbet and assume someone who has hit this board hard will call or raise me further? How do you play it?

Given that the 9 on the turn was in the middle of the other straight cards out there from the flop, I didn't see it as very likely that any other straights were made by this card. Rather, I figured, an oesd is a more likely holding after the turn for my opponents, or even more likely, one pair or maybe two pairs. I can't even put much credence in the flush draw since there was only one club on the flop and I'm not sure why anyone would make or call even a minbet with just a backdoor flush draw on a high flop. So, I just didn't see there as being much realistic upside on this board given the 9 on the turn, and thus I chose not to go with a big bet that I might otherwise have put in here given the high board at this point in the hand. I also, however, did not want to check since I had something good, and since all the minbetting went down on the last round of betting, I was afraid this could be checked around since as I mentioned above I thought it unlikely that the 9 filled any straights other than my own. So, I went with one of my least favorite moves typically:

The dreaded minbet. I figured, let's just get another 100 or 200 chips into the pot on this round, and if I'm lucky someone will think I am weak and put in a decent raise, which I can then reraise and take down a nice-sized pot. And that's exactly what happened:

theboatman simply could not resist my showing of weakness. Again I am reminded of my mantra when bluffing -- I always strive to tell a consistent story from the beginning of the hand if I want to maximize my ability to slow-play a strong hand (or bluff big with a weak hand). If I had come out with a 4x raise preflop in this hand, then my weak lead on the turn here could be interpreted by an astute player as me trying to sucker some more bets in with a weak bet when I am holding a strong hand (overpair, trips, etc.). But here, I just limped preflop, and I checked and then just called a minbet on the flop. Then on the turn, I led out with just a minbet of my own, which I was hoping would continue to give the impression that I was still weak, probably even on a draw as a result of the 9♣, which made not only a number of straight draws possible but also the new flush draw on the turn. Having acted weak all throughout the hand, my weak lead on the turn was immediately interpreted by theboatman as another weak play with what was likely a weak or drawing hand on my part, so he went ahead with the big raise with what was likely some kind of made hand on his part.

Anyways, I'm sure you can guess how the rest of this hand went. I immediately reverse-hoyed the guy, still holding the stone nuts and with just one card to come:

and he called my hoy bet (actually he reraised the 1 more chip to get allin, which I of course called).

Any takers as to what this guy is holding here? Is he on a draw or a made hand? I'll post the answer shortly.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

The Online MTT Circuit

Today I am going to respond to a few things I've seen out on the Internets over the past week or so. One of them is a comment that Jordan left on my blog earlier this week, and the other is something that Blinders wrote about earlier this week or maybe even last week. I've been meaning to post about that one but just haven't gotten around to it yet, but today will be the day.

But first, wtf is wrong with Terrell Owens? Now it turns out that he tried to commit suicide by overdosing on pain medication last night in Dallas. Apparently TO told a friend he was "depressed". Cheesus is that guy messed up. Now maybe it's easier for people to see why / how he single-handled ruined not only my Philadelphia Eagles, but the San Francisco 49ers before that. This guy comes to a team, and within a couple of seasons he has the locker room divided, dissension across the board, and of course a majorly losing record for the team. It's only after TO leaves a franchise that that franchise is able to start recovering from the destruction that is Terrell Owens.

And speaking of destroying Philly sports teams, all you baseball fans out there have got to be enjoying this year's annual installment of the Phillies collapse. Two days ago the Phils were a game up on the Dodgers for the NL wildcard lead, with just 6 games to play. Now two days later, and the Phillies are a full game out, thanks to losses to non-playoff teams at Florida and now last night at the hapless Washington Nationals. Different year, same story. Longtime Phillies fans like myself, I'm sad to say, already knew how this story ended earlier this week. I barely even paid attention to the Phillies games the past few days, because I knew they would lose them, since we have to lose them in order to make sure we don't play our way into the playoffs with this team. Philadelphia sports, what a joke.

OK enough off-topic ranting. On to poker.

One week ago today, Blinders ran this post in which, among other things, he issued a kind-of open call to the MTT'ing crowd out there to provide some information about the buyins required to make our big scores, etc. Here was the relevant part from his post:

"There are a lot of bloggers out there, who post huge MTT results, and claim that they are winning MTT players, but they are pretty silent about all of the buy-ins that were required before the big score. It would be really cool if someone would do a MTT challenge that detailed the daily wins/losses when playing only MTTs, so I can get a feel for how they deal with the day after day of losing before the big score. It would also be very interesting to see someone calculate thier hourly win rate when playing only MTTs. I would imagine that it is much smaller than most people realize."

This is an excellent question from Blinders, and it is one that I have spent a good deal of time thinking about as I recently recorded my second major mtt win of the year last week with the pokerstars $11 rebuy event. I am going to try to answer here what I can of Blinders' questions. Of course these answers will only apply to me, as I can't comment on amounts spent by anyone else in playing the large mtt's. Also, it is important for me to point out that, at least in my case, everything will be approximations only. As I've written here many times before, unlike it seems the majority of regular online poker players that I run into, I truly do not play the game to make money. I'm not saying I would continue playing if I was a long-term loser at the game, but the simple fact is that I play poker because I love it, and I love learning about it and improving my game. I especially love the excitement and strategy involved in the large mtt's, so this is what I focus my play on for the most part. That said, since I am really not concerned about making money per se from playing poker, I am definitely not one of those guys who keeps a spreadsheet of my play, or really who in any way officially tracks my performance. So I don't have a place I can look to quickly tell you all exactly how much money I have spent playing mtt's online in order to come up with the few big wins I have had. For me this analysis can only be estimated, as I have no desire or interest in keeping an official tally of all my play. That said, I know what I play and how long I've played them, and I believe I can give estimates to within probably 10% margin of error in most cases.

So let's see. In late May of this year, I won the nightly partypoker 40k guaranteed tournament, taking home just a shade under $10,000 for my efforts. Other than that particular night, I would estimate that I have played the party 40k probably 80 other times total. Let's say it's been 80 entries, and those come at $22 a pop on partypoker, so that's a total buyin of $1760 over my lifetime of playing the party 40k tournament. Of those 80 entries, I have probably cashed in the event 10 times, for an average payout of probably around $60. So, I have put about $1760 into the party 40k in my life, and I cashed out around $600 over 80 entries into the event. Plus, I won the tournament on May 26, 2006 for $9737 and change. Thus my total investment in the party 40k is $1760, plus $600 won in random cashes, plus $9737 won in my one big score. In all, it looks like I am up about 8 grand in the party 40k. Of course, this is all basically thanks to my one big score, without which I would not be a winning player overall for the party 40k.

Turning to the pokerstars Rebuy Madness tournament that I won last week, this one is much easier to quantify. That's because in this case, I had barely ever played this rebuy tournament before I won it earlier this month. I would say I probably played the $11 Rebuy Madness only 4 times before my big $6800 win, and in those 4 instances I probably bought in for an average of around $45, or $180 total invested in this tournament. Even if you also throw in the earlier $3 Rebuy Madness that runs every night at 8:15pm ET, even that I have only played probably another 5 times total in my life, probably again at an average total buyin per attempt of $13, for another $65 total invested in these Rebuy Madness tournaments. So in this case, in total, I have invested under $250 in this tournament over my online poker career, and have only cashed the one time when I won the $6800. Now that's some good ROI right there!

The only other major mtt I tend to play quite a bit is the 20k guaranteed every night at 10pm ET on full tilt. This is the hardest calculation of all as far as my total buyins, because many times I obtain my $26 buyin token via the $8 buyin token sng's. This is a total estimate (but an educated one), but I would guess my average buyin, taking into account all the tokens I win, and taking into account how many token sng's I typically need to play in order to win my tokens, that my average buyin for the $26 20k guaranteed tournament is probably around $18. And I would estimate at this point that I have probably played in this event around 140 times, which, at $18 a pop, amounts to a total buyin to this event of around $2500. Thus far, I have come in 5th place in this event once for a payout of $1400, and I've finished between 10-20th place on two other occasions for about $150-$200 apiece each time. I have also probably cashed about 20 other times for an average of $50 or so apiece. In the end I am going to estimate that I have basically broken even (or very close to it) for my play thus far in the 20k. I've spent about $2500, and have probably taken out about that same $2500 in winnings.

One thing to notice in each case above is that it has clearly taken a really big win in order for me to move significantly into positive territory with respect to any particular large regular mtt. The thing is, I have a high confidence that I can make that top-2 or top-3 finish in any of these tournaments that I regularly play. If I did not have that confidence, and did not have the final table experience and the large online mtt victories that I do, then I would be the first to admit that making your money back from these mtt's is a difficult proposition. For me I have found that the trick is to play the tournament as often as I can (assuming I have a sufficient bankroll to do that), and just to be there to take advantage when it is "my time" -- that is, when I'm getting the cards, winning the races and the 2-to-1 leading hands, etc. that get me to the final table. More than that, my record once I've made the final table in these events is very, very good. I very rarely go out in 9th or 8th place from the large mtt's, and again, if I did go out early at these final tables, there is no doubt that my overall financial statistics with respect to regularly playing these tournaments would be worse. You have to cash as often as you can, and you especially need to take advantage and run deep into the final table -- winning if at all possible or at least locking in a very solid payout with a deal at the final table -- when you have the opportunity to make it there.

One other item I wanted to respond to today comes from a comment that Jordan made here earlier this week. Jordan said:

"Hoy, I've finally started using BlogLines again, mostly so I can read your posts (no freezing issues there). I was hoping you could offer me some advice as to what nightly (or weekly) MTTs you play, including the buy-in amount, site, day of the week, start time, and average amount of participants (or for that matter how long the tourney usually takes). I'm really interested in trying some of these larger MTTs, so I know your insight would be invaluable."

First off, I want to say that I don't know if the lack of "freezing" your computer is as a result of Bloglines, but if it is then more power to them. Because I tend to post so many screen shots on the blog from time to time, the site can be hard to load on some slower machines. To combat this, I have tried in many cases to limit the number of screen shots I post, opting instead to go screenshot-heavy only for my big tournament wins, etc. Secondly, I have also limited the number of days' worth of posts that appear on my blog's homepage. This should help get the large screenshot days off of the main homepage and make the site easier for everyone to load. So the ease of loading the page might be related to Bloglines, or it might be related to something I'm doing on my end. Either way I'm thrilled it is loading better and I will of course remain committed to working on ease of loading of the blog now and in the future.

Secondly, as far as the content of Jordan's question, I am more than happy to post here the information Jordan is seeking:

1. I love to play the full tilt 20k guaranteed tournament. This tourney goes off at 10pm ET 7 days a week on full tilt (on Sundays it is a 30k guaranteed, but the other days it guarantees at least a 20k total prize pool). The buyin for this tournament is $26. Alternatively, you can also use win one of these TO suicide tokens in $8 buyin token sng's, effectively making the buyin for this event as little as $8 if you can win a token in one shot. The TO suicide token sng's that I prefer are the $8 buyin, 18-person structure, because the whole thing tends to take only around an hour, and the top 5 finishers out of 18 players win themselves a $26 token. As I mentioned, this tournament begins at 10pm ET every night of the week, and having made the final table before busting out in 5th place, I can say from experience that the winner is usually crowned at around 4am or so, give or take maybe 20 or 30 minutes. Average number of participants is around 1100 or so during the weeknights and 1200+ on Sundays. I've never seen this tournament with more than, say, 1350 or 1400 players on any occasion, which is one of the things I like about this tournament. It is way large, but it just doesn't even compare with the party 40k and its 2500 nightly players, nor with the ridiculous 3000, 5000 and 10,000 person freerolls constantly going off on pokerstars. Lastly, first prize in this tournament is usually roughly 6k, with roughly 4k to 2nd place and 2500 or so to 3rd place.

2. I also play the partypoker 40k guaranteed tournament many nights. This event is also 7 nights a week, at 10:20pm ET every single night. As I mentioned above, this tournament is the largest of the regular nightly guaranteed events at any of the sites I play, with between 2300 and 2600 players almost every night of the week. The buyin for this event is $22 on partypoker, which has no mechanism or structure for players to qualify with tokens for a smaller buyin, so it's $22 every night you want to play it. As I won this tournament back in May of this year, I can tell you that the winner will generally be crowned sometime between 4:30 and 5am ET, for a total running time of about 6 1/2 hours. It is a long time to sign up to play (especially on a weekday, for those of us working stiffs), but the payout is generous, with first prize usually between $9300 and $10,000, second prize getting around 6k and around 3k for third place. Also, one other nice aspect of the party 40k is that it starts you off with 3000 chips, as opposed to most of the pokerstars and full tilt tournaments which begin with starting stacks of 1500 chips.

The first two tournaments above -- the ftp 20k and the party 40k -- are easily my two favorite regular large mtt's to play. They are every night, same time every night so you never need to remember any different schedules, and I am comfortable with my bankroll with paying the $20-something it takes to enter. Both of them run later into the evening (morning) than I would like for a guy who tries to play every night I can, but who also is woken up at 6am sharp like clockwork every morning by two screaming talking Hammer Girls, but in the end if the powers that be at these sites have determined that the 10 o'clock hour start times are when they can get the most people to play, then I am ok with the schedules if that's what helps get the payouts for these events so high up there. I try to play these two events whenever I am able at night, and per the above discussion, I have found them to be a profitable play for me over time, especially the 40k with my big win earlier this year.

3. After the ftp 20k and the party 40k, I guess the next thing to discuss are the Rebuy Madness tournaments on pokerstars. Every night at 8:15pm ET is the $3 Rebuy Madness tournament (unlimited rebuys during the first hour, plus one optional add-on after the first hour), which has a 25k guaranteed prize pool, and every night at 10:15pm ET is the $11 flavor of Rebuy Madness, which has the same rebuy rules and carries a 55k guarantee, making this the largest nightly guaranteed tournament of any of the sites that I play on. These events tend to have around 1500 players per night, and in the end there tend to be between 3 and 4 times as many total buyins (with rebuys and add-ons) as there are original entrants in the tournaments. Having just won the $11 Rebuy Madness this month, I can say that it starts at 10:15pm ET and will end sometime around 5:30am. So, it is going to be more than 7 hours of time invested to really score in this event, but as with the party 40k tournament, the payout is well worth it, with usually around 15k going to first place, 9k to second place and 6k to 3rd place.

4. In addition to the tournaments I've discussed above, other regular mtt's that I enjoy playing on pokerstars, partypoker and full tilt include first the $5 turbo mtt on pokerstars. This event goes off at 10:39pm ET on Tuesday and Thursday nights only, and it has 5-minute rounds which means that even lasting through the first hour is quite a feat. This tournament generally has around 1500 players as well, and due to its turbo nature, you tend to hit the cash positions only about 15 minutes or so into the second hour of the tournament. In the end this thing tends to run about 2 1/2 hours or so from start to finish (ahh the wonders of 5-minute blind rounds), and first prize is usually around 3 grand, with second and third prize also generally at or above a thousand dollars. This is a nice one to play because it just does not involve the huge investment of time that the other regular tournaments involve. The downside, of course, is that it is turbo and that means that the pushmonkeys will be out in full force from the beginning. And, if you think that online mtt's in general become too much like donkeyfests near the end, then you really won't enjoy these turbo tournaments because basically every elimination of the last 300 or 400 players occurs on a preflop allin move and call of some kind.

I also enjoy playing the $20, 180-person sng's on pokerstars. As I've written about before on the blog, I think this is a great size for someone who is getting started in the large mtt's online, as it is just large enough to really give you the full gamut of the large mtt feel, while also still being small enough to be winnable by the average good online player, and not to take the entire night up playing. As they are sitngo's, these tournaments are constantly filling up and running on pokerstars -- 24/7/365 as far as I can tell -- and the event tends to last around 4 hours start to finish to crown a champion. The nice thing about the 20x180 sng is the payouts, with first place paying a nice $1080, second prize in the $700 range, and third prize around $500. It's more than enough to make playing in one of these tournaments interesting for just a $20 buyin, and as I said 4 hours is much more manageable for most people than the 6 or 7 hours or more that the largest mtt's are going to run you, especially again for those of us who need to be up in the morning to go to work to pay the bills.

Lastly, full tilt and pokerstars also run all kinds of $5 and $10 no-limit holdem mtt's at various times during the evenings every day on the respective sites. I don't know the full schedule for these events because I don't tend to play them very often, but my point is that if you are looking for such an event, you just need to look at the tournament schedule for the night on either pokerstars or full tilt, and you'll find what you're looking for. For example, full tilt now runs what they call "Midnight Madness" every night at midnight ET, and this is usually a $10 tournament that will have somewhere less than 1000 players. I don't even know how late this ends up running, but I would assume it's a safe guess that it takes around 6 hours start to finish to play one through. Also, I have also played the $20 mtt that pokerstars runs every night at 11:30pm ET, which generally tends to attract around 600 or 700 players and generally tends to pay out a few grand for the top spot. Again this is later than I usually prefer to start up a big tournament being that I am an East Coast guy, so I don't know exactly when this tournament ends, but again I'm sure it is generally around the same 5 1/2 to 6 hours or so that most other similar-sized mtt's run.

I hope this helps everyone who is interested in finding out more about and/or playing in the mtt circuit on the largest online poker sites. The fun thing about playing these things right now is that there is a large (and ever-growing) group of bloggers who are attacking one or more of these events on a nightly basis these days. So there is always someone you know in these events, and someone (or, usually, a whole group of people) on the girlie chat who are involved in making a run.

See you all tonight at the Mookie -- 10pm ET on full tilt, Private tab, password is "vegas1" as always.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Mondays at the Hoy and the 20k Guaranteed

Another great night of poker in the Hammer household last night, as the Hammer Girls gave me time to play nearly unfettered for the first time in several days. There was just one wakeup to deal with, which occurred right around 10pm ET and the beginning of my usual two-tabling of the Mondays at the Hoy tournament along with the full tilt 20k guaranteed tourney. Strangely, Hammer Wife and I were surprised to hear the older Hammer girl, not the younger, doing the crying, while Hammer baby remained asleep. Now, whereas the Hammer baby waking up would result almost surely in the need for a good 30 minutes of rocking, bottles to be made, songs to be sung, and a sure sitout to start both tournaments, I knew right away that a waking of our 2 1/2-year-old with a sleeping baby also in the room at the same time required a different kind of finesse.

I tiptoed into the room, where my older daughter M immediately starting whining asking us to take the baby out of the room. Try as I might, I could not talk her down as she continued to escalate, getting dangerously close to outright crying which would all but surely wake the baby. That would severely cramp my style heading into one of my favorite two-tables of the week, the Hoy and the 20k on full tilt. So, trying to channel our favorite freak nasty daddy of triplet girls, I asked myself what would JJ do in this situation? Then it hit me. I whispered to M that she could have ice cream tomorrow if she went back to sleep quietly right away. Suddenly, she got as quiet as a mouse, looked up at me quizzically, and asked, "An ice cream cone, Daddy?" I said yes, and like magic the girl's eyes were shut before her head even hit the pillow. Crisis averted, my first of many successful allin moves on the night, and just like that I knew it was going to be a good night at the virtual tables.

That thought was confirmed, first when I doubled up early on against a donkey in the 20k, and then a short while later in the Hoy when I ended up calling a preflop allin with AKo against what turned out to be KK:

And then check out the witty banter from me in the chat when I hit a flucking flop:

So this got me back to even after a bit of a slow start, and then came the hand that got me staked with a nice stack early, as I set out still in search of my first cash in Mondays at the Hoy since I invited the bloggers and blog readers to come get your asses kicked. I had KK in middle position, raised it up 3x preflop and got one caller from the SB. On a raggy flop, I led out for less than half the pot:

And thret took the bait with my weak lead:

I did my usual short pause combined with my patented slow-raise, figuring him for a lower overpair or maybe A7 or K7s:

which again worked like a charm:

Although at this point I was a bit worried about flopped trips with a pair of 8s or 7s, I had to make this call and hope my slow-raising on this hand had tricked thret into thinking I was weaker than I was. I was right:

and I had my first elimination of the night, and a nice stack in the earlygoing of the MATH tournament. My next big move also used my slow-raise approach that I so prefer to checking when I am tempted to slow play. This time the victim was PhinCity, as I checked after he checked to me on a JT9 rainbow flop, when I had flopped the stone nuts:

Then on a raggy turn card, I made my slow-raise move on his half-pot bet:

Phin quickly min-reraised me (see how well this slow-raise works?!):

so then I slow-raised the poor guy again, again still holding the stone nuts at this point in the hand:

I was like Obi-Wan Kenobi at the droid garage in the original Star Wars on this hand. I kept "telling" Phin to keep raising with my weak raises, and he just kept complying and complying:

At this point there wasn't any slower I could raise it, so I just moved allin:

and, in one of my favorite plays of the night, Phin caved:

Hey, at least he had the sense to recognize that he was beaten, and not just throw the rest of his chips away. With 1300 or so left, he was still in shape to make a move, despite having donked off around two-thirds of his stack with a not very good hand.

This hand got me into 2nd place of the 13 or so remaining players, and was more than enough for me to make it to the final table of the Hoy tournament a short while later:

The table included some MATH newbies like Wil, Joe Speaker and greenie523, as well as a couple of longtime players like myself, slb, Phin, and a10419, and who could forget my blogger tournament nemesis cc, who seems to knock me out of one of these things nearly every week with two crappy overcards.

After beginning the final table by crippling Wil's JJ with my AK preflop, my first final table elimination did not come until there were 7 players left, and I faced an allin bet from a short stack when I held an oesd on the flop:

My quick read of Lok1 was that he had not hit this raggy flop, so I figured I was looking at any 2, 4, 5 or 6 to win, for a total of 14 outs against what I envisionsed to be just two overcards from my short-stacked opponent. 14 outs twice equals a roughly 50-50 shot, so I went ahead with my big stack and called the bet with just a drawing hand. Turns out I was spot-on with my read, as well as with the odds when my oesd filled on the river:

And that was how I eliminated #7 from the Mondays at the Hoy tournament last night. I then set my sights on knocking out #6 as well. And I didn't have to wait long, when a10419 moved allin preflop ahead of me when I happened to be holding AQs, and I made the call:

and I continued my Jamie Gold ways, eliminating both #7 and then #6 from the tournament in rapid succession, and building my chip lead to the point that I held nearly 50% of the chips left in the event, with five players remaining, and me within shouting distance of my first-ever Hoy cash. Not two hands later, I also put the finishing touches on Wil when he moved allin with his pocket pair against my higher pocket pair:

Now I really was turning into Jamie Gold, having knocked out 7th place, 6th place and 5th place in this tournament in fairly quick succession. Someone else was going to have to start eliminating people, or I was going to run roughshod over this tournament.

At break #2, I had more than twice the second place player's chips in the Hoy tournament:

and then just a couple of hands into Round #3, slb made the mistake of pushing his poor hand into my monster preflop, and we were down to 3:

My first Mondays at the Hoy cash was here!

Two hands later, I was going to make really short work of this event when I got Mr. Speaker allin with his QQ against my KK. But, in typical fashion for those phucking whores, of course this time the Queens pull out a miraculous flop to beat me:

Determined to keep my cool after that highly annoying suckout, I managed to persevere and then finally eliminate cc from a blogger tournament, as his Q8s failed to hold up against my A9o (much to my extreme surprise, given cc's luck against me in these situations in the past):

So I went heads-up with Mr. Speaker for the $220 first prize, in what was again my first cash ever out of probably close to 15 or 20 of these weekly MATH tournaments. Surprisingly, I began heads-up play with only a slight chip lead over Joe, even though I had literally Jamie Golded my way through the final table, eliminating 7th place, 6th place, 5th place, 4th place and 3rd place on my way to heads-up. Joe and I battled it out for a good 15 or 20 minutes, all the while with me moving deeper and deeper into the cash positions in the 20k guaranteed tournament as well, and I actually think Joe and I had fairly similar heads-up styles. Except for a few hands when Joe grabbed a small lead, I was ahead for most of our heads-up battle, and as such I was not wanting to get too involved in a pot unless I had something good, or at least had a strong read that Speaker was weak.

Eventually, I started checking preflop even with my strong hands, and this worked to a tee about 30 hands into our heads-up matchup, when I found a flop of AKT rainbow with me holding A3o in my hand:

I knew Joe did not think I had an Ace since I hadn't raised it up preflop (when I had been raising preflop with all my Aces when our heads-up battle first began), so I went for the hoy there, and Joe mulled and mulled. Finally, he called, and then we checked it down through the river:

Left to just one solitary chip, the damage had been done and I was going to win my first Hoy tournament. Two suckouts later, here was the final hand for me to capture the weekly title:

and the final leaderboard:

Congratulations again to cc for his third place finish and $88 win, and to Joe Speaker in his first Mondays at the Hoy tournament for taking down second place and $132 in the process. And to me for my triumphant domination in my own tournament, as I literally knocked out every single player at the final table from #7 down to #2 on my way to my first victory.

All the while while this was going on, I also managed to make a deep run in the 20k on full tilt. Down to the top 50 out of over 1000 entrants, I reraised an obvious late position stealer with my powerhouse 83o:

and got my over-stealy opponent to lay down what was surely a better hand. By acting quickly and not showing my cards after he folded to my preflop reraise, I had set this guy up to believe I might have just been restealing with nothing, a fact which I was determined to use against bulldogs2424 as soon as I could, since he loved to steal from good position so much. Well, I got my chance about five minutes later, when another 3x raise from the cutoff from this guy was met by a large reraise from me, this time with me holding a very solid hand of AQo:

This time, Mr. Stealdonkey couldn't bring himself to fold even an easily-dominated hand like K9o when he should have known how easily he could be behind:

But never fear, full tilt likes to reward donkeyplay more often than it should, and this board ended my night and my latest run at the mighty 20k:

In the end, I was out in 46th out of 1026 players:

bringing my nightly winnings very close to $300. In all, a great night at the tables for me, and I even got to sleep almost through the morning hours thanks to the Hammer Girls finally deciding to just sleep it off with each other in the room together. Hopefully there will be more of the same tonight, when I set out to win my 2nd WWdN tournament after taking down my first Hoy last night in triumphant, Jamie Gold-esque fashion.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Low Poker Weekend

I'm kinda like that new Monday Night Football ad campaign: to me, Monday is one of the best days of the week. Monday Night Football, my fantasy football games are often finalized, and, of course, it's time for Mondays at the Hoy again!

Come one and come all to the $20 buyin no-limit holdem tournament that is designed for you to play in. I only ever post or talk about the weekly Hoy tournament here on the blog, so it really is a tournament for you guys who read my daily ramblings. And as I always say, it's a great chance to tune up and build up your notes databases heading into another full week of blogger tournaments. And to win a good deal of money in the process, since we play as always for the $20 buyin. See you tonight on pokerstars (password is "hammer" as always)!

So I hardly played any poker this weekend. Long story short, the Hammer Wife and I have finally taken the probably long overdue step of moving the Hammer Baby, who's not really a baby anymore after she turned one last week, into her older sister's room (who is 2 years old). As those of you who have had the misfortune of doing this before will know, it isn't fun. Let's just say that last night my wife and I both got to sleep straight through from midnight to 4:03am, and are thrilled about it. As such, it doesn't make sense for me to play too many large mtt's these days, which is fine. The mtt's aren't going anywhere, the kids will probably be sleeping normally in a few days to a few weeks is my guess, and let's be honest -- now that Iakaris is playing the 20k and the 40k a lot of these nights, what chance do I really have of taking down the big prize anyways? Seriously, that man is on a veritable tear -- go check out his wordliness himself and read all about it.

What poker I did play this weekend was sick, wrong and short-lived. On Friday I sat in the 20k guaranteed on full tilt, but within minutes the Hammer girls were awake, I disappeared for a while, was short when I came back and then still got hosed when my KK lost to a (moronic) allin call by my opponent holding A6. Naturally, the first Ace on the flop wasn't enough, but at least the trip Aces on the turn was enough to put me out of that misery. I did not play on Saturday, and then on Sunday I played the 30k again, this time with Joanne and Iak on the girlie chat, and you know what happened? Joanne and I were both bad beat out within the first two hands. Sick. As bad as my beat was -- AK losing to an allin monkey on the A64 flop with A2, only to see a 2 hit the turn and IGH in 1240th place) -- Joanne's was worse. She just did it the old-fashioned way, with her AA losing allin preflop to another pushmonkey who started with 66 in the hole, but then flopped a 6 and JGH in the 1240's as well. Unreal. But such is life in poker, and especially in the large mtts where the first hour really can be Monkey Hour if you get the right people at your table early.

Sadly, other than a $20 loss over about an hour of 3-6 hilo, and a bubble 4th place finish in a $20 HORSE sng last night with Joanne, that was the sum total of my weekend pokerings. I'm sure it will get better over a short period of time with the girls' sleeping, and I'll soon be back to my regular nightly double-donations to the 20k and the 40k, but until then I guessing I will do just the blogger tournaments, maybe the 20k if the kids sound quiet, and probably a lot of cash games and less 20x180's, less of the 11:30pm $20 mtt on pokerstars, etc. But if I disappear for an hour from the Hoy tonight (which I will be able to easily afford due to my large early chip lead), you'll know where I am off to.

You know what's one thing I've really taken to doing lately whenever I have one of those donkeyass mofos at my table? You know the kind, who just cannot shut up no matter how much or how little anyone responds to them? You know, like I used to be in 2005? Yeah, like that. Well, one thing I have found works very well is to wait until someone sucks out on them in a hand for any decent amount of chips, and then type "nice hand" into the chat, as if I didn't even realize it was a suckout. The donkey mofo won't usually respond, but whether he does or not, you know it pisses his shit off.

That's all for today. See you tonight at Mondays at the Hoy! For now, go read someone's writeup of the Bash at the Boathouse this weekend, which I've heard (of course) was an absolute blast. The only Bash mention I'm finding at this early hour on a Monday morning after a weekend of public drunkenness and debauchery is Drizz, although there is not much substance even there yet. But just the reference to my old hometown standby convenience chain, Wawa, is enough to make my mouth water. Mmmmmmm....chicken salad hoagie (classic, not shortie, you wussies!)

Friday, September 22, 2006

Three Tabling -- DADI, The 20k and The 40k

This is the kind of night I have grown to love. A fun, rare blogger tournament like the DADI on a poker site I love (full tilt), at the same time as I get to play the 20k guaranteed on full tilt at 10pm ET for an $8 token, and the 40k guaranteed on partpoker at 10:20pm ET. That is three tabling at its best right there. Especially when thepokertrustboys have set us up with a HORSE tournament for DADI 9. And you all know how much I love to play the HORSE games. I've been playing several HORSE sngs a week on full tilt with a buddy from work as it is, cashing in most of them as has he, and I play the cash on pokerstars as well to a nice, regular profit. The bottom line is, not many players are what I would consider good HORSE players, and I went into this event thinking I had better do well or something is severely wrong with my multigame right now. I was lucky to run into Don to my immediate right at my starting table, a position Don and I would share throughout an evening full of pocket pairs in Razz, counterfeited lows in O8 and vegas talk in the girlie chat.

Long story short, I did very well in the HORSE tournament, and was in first place in fact all the way from about 20 people left to 12 people left. This took me well into the second hour of the DADI tournament, such that both the 20k and the 40k were also kicked in, and I was in mtt heaven. Here was an interesting hand that occurred about 30 minutes in to the 20k:

With blinds of 30-60 and me down to around 1200 chips from my starting stack of 1500, I find 44 in middle position. It's folded to me, so I put in a standard 3x raise to 180. Another player in late-middle position calls my 180 chip bet, and everyone else folds. Two-handed we see a flop of A45 rainbow. BINGO! I've just flopped my trips, and there is an Ace on the board to boot, which is what I put him on anyway to make his preflop call. After pausing as if I'm not sure what to do, I lead out with this weakish-looking bet, trying to build my opponent's confidence in his hopefully strong Ace:

He calls my bet. Me likey. This guy has A9-AQ and thinks he's ahead.

The turn card comes a harmless 10♥. This time I complete my feint by checking to him, suggesting that I led out at the flop with the Ace, got called by someone who probably has an Ace and now I don't want to lose any more chips into this pot. I'm making a strong move here -- the ole' bet-check-raise move -- and it works with high frequency and consistency in the large mtts, always has and always will. My opponent responds with this bet:

This one was interesting. Here my opponent has made a laughably weak bet of his own, following up on my weak bet on the flop which he smooth called. He has bet 240 into an 850-chip pot, just over a quarter of the current pot and basically giving me odds to call for almost any hand I could possibly have. This worries me. Especially with my showing of weakness with my lead bet on the flop, he should be inclined to bet larger here with an Ace and a high kicker he figures to be the best. What is going on here? My only conclusion is that this guy likes his hand more now on the turn than he did on the flop. And then it hits me: he is holding AT. That's the hand that best fits his play so far here. He called a preflop 3x raise from me from middle-late position with AT. Then he smooth calls a weak flop bet as well with TP10K. Then when a 10 falls on the turn, he makes a weak bet where he basically has to bet strong here. He's got two pairs and he is clearly trying to bait me into calling. I am so going to nail this guy. I push allin, knowing that he will now put me on a strong Ace, maybe AK or AQ, and he will clearly call and show me his two pairs which are nearly hopelessly behind my flopped trips with one card to come. He shows:

Ouch. I think I'll go home now. See what I did there? I told you this was an "interesting hand" from the 20k, which it was, but what it really was was my elimination hand like I've been posting when I'm able to play in this tournament. But I surprised you with that, didn't I? Man if the ability to do that isn't a good reason right there to love blogging as a medium, I don't know what is. Anyways, I'm not killing myself one bit for this hand. Flopping trips over trips is almost a muggafuggin guarantee that someone is busting in a no-limit holdem tournament, period. I even picked up on his obviously trappy bet on the turn. I just didn't put him on a strong enough hand. I don't see how I could have in this situation. If anyone disagrees and thinks I should have just smooth called on the turn and not gotten more chips in on the river (when he clearly would have moved in on me, regardless of what card fell on the river), I would love to hear your reasoning in the comments. So that's how the 20k ended for me, my first early exit in about a week but not one that I'm going to spend another minute thinking about how I let it happen, unless someone out there thinks I played this wrong and should have picked up on his trips. Daniel Negreanu, if you're out there, please tell me how I should have known he had higher trips and not two pairs or worse. All I know is that I had put him on A9-AQ after the flop, and then the Ten fell on the turn and he played it just like I might expect the guy with AT to play it.

At around 11:20pm ET, the final table of the DADI 9 HORSE tournament arrived:

Talk about a table full of quality poker players! I could have almost picked this final table out just from looking at the starting roll call. We all knew Drizz would play his way in, and that CJ would luckbox his way in. Don surprised a lot of people by final tabling as well, although I can't say I am surprised as Don has been final tabling everything in sight in blogger tournament land for what seems like weeks. In all it was a very talented group of all-around poker players sitting at the final table, and I felt like I was in great shape to take it down.

And that's when full tilt turned into brickland for me. I could not hit a draw to save my life, and everyone else nailed me repeatedly, whether on the river, on seventh street, with overcards, flushes, and counterfeits on the end. Whatever it took to knock me down, it happened. So, for example, when I begun this hand with the chip lead out of 7 players remaining, I called Trauma's allin on 5th street when I knew my 4-card Razz draw was a lock to be ahead of his at that point in the hand:

but then this happened on 7th street:

This same thing happened again a few hands later to me, and in the span of about 5 minutes, I went from the chip leader to near the bottom of the ITM positions. Finally, I got all my chips in heads-up against Trauma once again, this time on 4th street in hilo, when I was leading on both the high side and the low side:

and here was the end result:

Once again, I would like to extend my thanks to 7th street, for making my final table appearance in DADI 9 one of my most enjoyable final tables in my life. Give me those chips against that final table in HORSE ten times, and I'll put the money on me every single time. But last night it was not meant to be, as I headed out in fifth place overall, for a payout of around $30. I played great, but it is always frustrating when I know I've been repeatedly effed out of my chance to win another big blogger tournament. Nonetheless I can certainly take some solace in knowing I lost to what was by the end a collection of all very strong poker players. Congratulations in the end to Trauma for taking it all down, and to everyone else who cashed in the top 6 spots:

And the best part is, while all this fun was going on, I also managed to end my night by cashing in the party 40k:

So in all, another profitable night at the tournament tables for me. And I have to say, playing HORSE with the whole crew is always a blast. Thanks again to Jordan, Trip and Gary for setting the DADI up, and I can't wait for the next one.